For years, people have used traditional incandescent or fluorescence lighting apparatuses in order to address their interior lighting concerns. However, such lighting apparatuses present a number of drawbacks. For example, the popular AR111 halogen apparatus presents the following drawbacks—relatively high power consumption, inefficiency of light dispersion due to the placement of its metal shield in the line sight of the halogen bulb, and its limited effectiveness in preventing glare from the halogen bulb.
Recently, a number of LED lighting apparatuses have been designed to replace the AR111 halogen apparatus, as well as other traditional incandescent or fluorescence lighting apparatuses. Typically, in such LED lighting apparatuses, the LED light source is located at the center of a reflector with its light emission directed outward from the reflector. Additionally, there are LED lighting apparatuses, such as PAR38, which use multiple LEDs with their light emissions directed outward from one or more reflectors. These configurations are unable to achieve narrow beam angles, and result in considerable glare since observers are not shielded from the LED light source. Further, these configurations inefficiently distributes heat; thereby, making the use of high-powered LEDs in these configurations practically prohibitive.
To address these problems, alternative LED lighting apparatuses which use a mirror or reflective surface to reflect light back in the direction of the LED light source have been disclosed. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 6,976,769 to McCullough et al. entitled “Light-Emitting Diode Reflector Assembly Having a Heat Pipe,” U.S. Pat. No. 7,246,921 to Jacobson et al. entitled “Back-Reflecting LED Light Source”, and PCT International Publication No. WO 2006/033998 to Magna International Inc. entitled “Thermal Management System for Solid State Automotive Lighting.”